È strano! È strano!… Ah, fors'è lui… Sempre libera (La traviata)

La traviata was written quickly, over the winter of 1852-53, from a play Verdi had seen in Paris the previous year: Dumas fils had adapted his own novel about a courtesan dying of consumption, and the story was barely a decade old. The premiere at La Fenice on 6 March 1853 failed — the singers were unsuited to their parts, and an audience asked to watch contemporary life in contemporary dress refused it. Verdi revised parts of the score, and a revival at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice fourteen months later established the work permanently.